Refurbishment Plans

Project Phases

The Reader have been working closely with Liverpool City Council and our partners to develop a full plan for the renovation of Calderstones Mansion House. We will transform the Mansion House, Coach House and Stable Yard, bringing them back to life in a meaningful way while respecting their Grade II listed status.

The project will be carried out in three phases:

PHASE ONE– In 2015, The Reader completed its first capital project with the refurbishment of an old barn and stable block at Calderstones. Two new enterprises were launched to occupy these spaces and operate as The Storybarn, a children’s interactive literature centre and The Reader Ice Cream Parlour – both now open to the public. These two Grade II-listed buildings form part of The Reader’s site at Calderstones and are an important part of the overall Calderstones project.

PHASE TWO – The Reader will sympathetically restore Calderstones Mansion House and relocate and rehouse The Calder Stones. The Mansion House has a total of 2,190m2 internal capacity across four floors which is been currently earmarked for retail, office, hospitality, events and community activity. Planned refurbishment will include a book shop, community events space, a theatre room, a large modern café, reading rooms, heritage rooms and office space. Find out more.

PHASE THREE – The Coach House, located alongside The Reader Ice Cream Parlour, consists of 712m2 over two floors. The Coach House provides a future opportunity to link with The International Centre for Shared Reading activity, but in the interim, accommodates The Reader’s offices.

Thank you for expressing an interest in volunteering with The Reader. Your details have been sent to our team; we’ll be in touch as soon as possible using your preferred mode of contact. In the meantime, here’s some things you can do to start your Shared Reading story.

1 – Visit a group

If you aren’t an existing group member or haven’t dropped into a session yet; before training, we ask volunteers to attend an open community Shared Reading group. Groups are always free to attend and there is no need to book. Find your closest group here.

You can also get an idea of how a group works with this group snapshot video:

2 – Complete our application form

If you’ve already visited a Shared Reading group and are interested in training to become a volunteer Reader Leader, we’ll ask you to complete our application form. One of the team will email this to you, but you can also download it here if you want to make a start.